Topic > Continuous Conflict in the Law of Nature by Thomas Hobbes

According to Hobbes, men are actually engaged in a continuous struggle in the absence of civil authority to maintain the peace. It means nothing other than constant fear or danger of war and violent death. There is “constant fear, and the danger of violent death, and the life of the lonely man, poor, bad, brutal and short.” In the state of nature, men are exposed to the danger of attacks by others and have no other security than that which their strength and cunning can provide them. Under such conditions Hobbes thinks there can be no industry; since no one can be sure of reaping the fruits of their labor; no land culture, no convenient buildings, no tools to move a thing from one place to another; no arts, no letters and no society. What is worse is the intolerable fear and the danger of violent death; and man's life is extremely uncertain. Hobbes's natural man has no natural obligation to his fellow men. There is no community of men, nor a social or community good, but only an aggregate of self-centered individuals, the separate good of each of which comes into conflict with that of another. It can also be added that in In such a state there can be neither right nor wrong, neither justice nor injustice. A law of nature is defined by Hobbes as a general precept or rule, discovered by reason, which prohibits a man from doing that which is destructive to life or is otherwise unfavorable to its preservation. It is generally obelisk that a man renounces a part of the natural freedom that every individual possesses in the state of nature to do what he deems necessary for his own preservation, for the surest realization of the rest. In Hobbes' system there is a great difference... the middle of the paper... arises in two ways, either by institution, when men unite of their own accord to free themselves from the incessant strife and strife of the state of nature, or by conquest or acquisition when the union is the result of the superior strength of some individual which threatens them with destruction. The essence of the State remains the same no matter how it comes into existence. However, it is best expressed when the state is established as a result of the social contract between people. According to Hobbes, the only method of establishing a community is for men to bestow “all their powers and strength upon one man or upon an assembly of persons.” men." Then only the plurality of wills, from which conflict and clash derive, will be reduced to unity and each "will recognize himself as the author of what the ruler thus constituted does”.”.